Guests share their stories of inspiration, advice to students at Hans Christensen

A series of special assemblies at Hans Christensen Middle School featured a panel of distinguished visitors that included former San Diego Chargers great Willie Buchanon and a theater actress portraying the former slave Harriet Tubman.

The guests told the students at the Menifee school to set goals, stay in school and graduate, and to celebrate the uniqueness and differences of all people.

“A person without a goal is a person without a vision,” said Buchanon, who is now a real estate agent in San Diego. “You have to avoid abuses so you can stay on the path of a career.”

He told the students that playing football as a professional in the National Football League — Buchanon played for the Chargers and Green Bay Packers from 1972 to 1982 — didn’t define him. He also worked as a teacher during the off-season, he said. Buchanon urged the students to set goals and to surround themselves with people who want to better themselves and do something productive.

The Black History Month assemblies at Hans Christensen, held Feb. 8, mixed historical lessons about Tubman — a slave who fled her Southern plantation before the Civil War to help spirit other slaves away to freedom in Northern states — with inspirational talks from the speakers.

Addressing groups of students at assemblies held throughout the day for all grades were Buchanon; Dr. Billy McCarty, a physician at Camp Pendleton; Will Gainer, a former U.S. Marine officer who now teaches modern world history at Vista Murrieta High; and actress Marlynne Cooley of Temecula, who portrayed Tubman in a moving presentation.

“I’m just hoping the kids know she was also an American historian and how she changed history,” said Cooley, who added that she began portraying Tubman a year ago and hopes to take her presentation to more area schools.

Cooley’s dramatic performance included a freedom hymn and the recalling of Tubman’s experiences as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad. Tubman rescued 300 slaves during 19 trips, Cooley said.

Several students said they especially enjoyed the storytelling aspects of the assembly.

“I thought it was very inspiring,” said C.J. Zulueta, an eighth-grader.

Eighth-grader Celiste Fison said, “I thought it was good. I liked the storytelling, even though I knew most of it.”

When asked what she learned from the assembly, seventh-grader Kaylin Fain said, “To stay positive and to believe in yourself.”

That was the key message from McCarty. He told a story about a young boy who lost both parents as a child but went on to become a doctor. That boy was McCarty, who said he was inspired by the Rev. Martin Luther King and his dream of freedom and racial harmony.

“You are actually the realization of a dream. You are what he saw 40 years ago,” McCarty told the students.